July 29, 1985

The decision by Federal authorities to ease the fuel economy standards for the domestic automobile industry is not likely to revive the gas guzzlers of old, although it may delay the introduction of more efficient models. The Department of Transportation lowered earlier this month the average fuel economy figure that must be met by each company's cars to 26 miles to the gallon, from 27.5 miles, for the 1986 model year and possibly for three years more. This will give the General Motors Corporation and the Ford Motor Company a lift in profits by permitting them to sell large rear-wheel-drive cars of older design for a few more years until they are replaced by more efficient models. Officials at Chrysler, which has discontinued most of its larger models, estimated that large cars account for $8 billion a year in profits for General Motors and $3 billion for Ford.

The Long Island clamming industry, once the nation's leader, has fallen into a decline that some experts fear could lead to virtual extinction. ''This is a dead industry in five years,'' said Lee Koppelman, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Board, ''unless we get proper bay management.'' The bleak forecast is based on studies done for the planning agency by marine scientists. Hurt by a shortage of clams, shaken by falling consumer confidence in the safety of eating raw shellfish, the $100 million industry of the 1970's has shrunk to less than $40 million. Long Island has fallen behind Rhode Island and Florida; even its own restaurants and fish markets have begun selling clams from out of state.

Missing text YANKS ROUTED, 8-2

When Robin Leigh-Pemberton succeeded the widely respected Gordon Richardson as governor of the Bank of England two years ago, the City of London rippled with privately expressed qualms, and newspapers wrote unenthusiastic editorials. To be sure, the National Westminster Bank had flourished under the amiable Mr. Leigh-Pemberton's six-year stint as chairman, but that was a job that centered on general policy making and external relations. Skeptics wondered whether it had provided Mr. Leigh-Pemberton with enough experience for the governorship of Britain's central bank - a banking position commonly described as the world's second-most demanding and influential, after that of United States Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker. The governor of the 291-year-old Bank of England, which was nationalized in 1946, is answerable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and thus less independent than Mr. Volcker. But the governor is also, by tradition, the informal czar of the City, London's financial district, and involved with the welfare of a far broader range of financial institutions than his American counterpart.

HOW does Harry Rothman do it? That is the question that, as the radio commercials say, incredulous New Yorkers have been asking themselves for decades. Now the mystery has deepened. The discount clothing store on lower Fifth Avenue has slashed its prices even more, and the refrain is, ''Why is Harry Rothman, the dean of men's wear discounters, doing this?''